Mohamed Salah could soon find himself at the center of a potential dispute between Liverpool and Egypt in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n
The 33-year-old forward is expected to miss Liverpool\u2019s festive fixtures due to his participation in the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), which takes place from December 21 to January 18. Egypt are among the favourites to progress deep into the tournament in Morocco.<\/p>\n
Reports from Egypt last week suggested that national team coach Hossam Hassan wants to assemble his squad two weeks before the competition begins \u2014 a move that could further limit Salah\u2019s availability for Liverpool.<\/p>\n
However, Salah reportedly wants to remain with the Reds for as long as possible.<\/p>\n
According to Lewis Steele in his Liverpool Confidential column for Mail Sport, Salah is set to hold talks with Hassan next week in hopes of finding a balanced solution for both club and country.<\/p>\n
Under tournament rules, Egypt are entitled to call up the winger two weeks before AFCON starts. That would mean Salah might miss Liverpool\u2019s Champions League trip to Inter Milan on December 9 and their Premier League home game against Brighton four days later.<\/p>\n
Still, Salah\u2019s preference is to feature in both matches before joining his national team, especially since Liverpool\u2019s Carabao Cup exit has left them with a rare free midweek after facing Brighton.<\/p>\n
How many games could Salah miss because of AFCON?
\nIn the best-case scenario for Liverpool, Salah would play against Inter and Brighton, and Egypt would experience an early exit in the AFCON group stage, allowing him to return around the New Year\u2019s Day match against Leeds \u2014 though that would still be a tight turnaround.<\/p>\n
If, however, he reports early for Egypt\u2019s full training camp and the Pharaohs reach the semi-finals or final, Salah could end up missing as many as eight Liverpool games, including away fixtures at Tottenham and Arsenal.<\/p>\n
This will mark the third time Salah has departed mid-season for AFCON duty. While there were no issues during his first absence four years ago, his early return to Merseyside with an injury during the 2023 edition (held in January 2024) caused frustration among Egyptian fans. He never fully regained his form afterward, and Liverpool\u2019s title challenge faded as a result.<\/p>\n
Now, as another AFCON approaches, manager Arne Slot will hope for a smoother outcome \u2014 and that a respectful agreement can be reached, allowing Salah to balance both his club and national team responsibilities without disruption.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mohamed Salah could soon find himself at the center of a potential dispute between Liverpool and Egypt in the coming weeks. The 33-year-old forward is expected to miss Liverpool\u2019s festive fixtures due to his participation in the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), which takes place from December 21 to January 18. Egypt are among the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":54269,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/salah-egypt-afcon-768x430.jpg-1.webp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54268"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54270,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54268\/revisions\/54270"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/54269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}